Donald Ray Henry

In high school Donald Henry had a lot going for him. He was President of his graduating class of 1966, a member of the basketball, track, and cross-country teams, and participated in many other activities from band to chorus.

After graduation he enlisted in the Marines with some of his high school friends. He did not make it back.

At age 19, Henry had been in Vietnam for one month when his platoon of 101 men was surrounded and wiped out while in combat in the "demilitarized zone".

A Note from The Virtual Wall

Lance Corporal Henry wasn't quite in the DMZ when he was killed, and his unit certainly was not "wiped out" in the fight in which he died.

Operation KINGFISHER, the name given to one of the continuing efforts to block North Vietnamese Army units moving from the DMZ into eastern Quang Tri Province, ran from mid-July through October 1967. During that time, the Marines suffered 340 men killed in action and almost 1500 wounded while confirming over 1100 dead from the various NVA units engaged.

At the beginning of September the NVA made a concerted effort to isolate and capture the Marine outpost at Con Thien (Hill 158), just south of the DMZ. The result was a series of bitter engagements around the hill. One such engagement on 06 Sep pitted Echo and Hotel Companies, 2/9 Marines against an NVA battalion. While the Marines held, they lost eight men: